Can men and women be 'just friends'?

"No matter how you put it, no man is happy just being friends with a woman. Men always have ulterior motives."

Jackie, 34, a married woman, recently recalled an encounter she had with her husband. She says she almost exchanged blows with him over a mobile phone gift bought for her by a man who she considers ‘just a friend’ on her birthday. That she accepted a phone from another man angered her husband so much so that he almost unleashed terror on her.

“Almost a year ago, a friend of mine who had sympathised with me because of the mulika mwizi (simple phone) he had seen me with for long, bought me a smartphone after I jokingly asked him to buy me one for my birthday. Little did I know it was going to land me in trouble with my husband,” she says.